IIT Madras Incubation Cell aims at incubating 100 start-ups this year

NEW DELHI: Indian Institute of Technology Madras (IIT Madras) is aiming to incubate at least 100 start-ups across various sectors this year. The start-ups will be nurtured, supported and supervised by the IIT Madras Incubation Cell (IITMIC), which is the institute’s umbrella body for various innovation and entrepreneurship projects.

IIT Madras director V Kamakoti said, “IIT Madras saw a lot of ambitions realised during 2023. In the past year, we took up several important projects including IITM Zanzibar Campus, which became the first-ever IIT to be established overseas, launched a Department of Medical Sciences and Technology, and are aspiring to do many more things in this direction. We are also looking forward to launching a new school on interdisciplinary sciences. It is very important as today, we are moving towards interdisciplinary education. We also want to close this financial year with the maximum amount of projects.”

He added for 2024, the institute has a lot more exciting initiatives and socially relevant projects that would greatly benefit the nation. “We are looking at closing the financial year 2023-24 with 366 patents. We will try our best to see one patent a day. It is a matter of great pride at IIT Madras that we do a lot more of innovation. We are also looking at starting 100 start-ups in 2024.”

IITM has been ranked No 1 in the ‘Overall’ Category for the fifth consecutive year in India Ranking 2023 released by National Institution of Ranking Framework (NIRF) of education ministry.

The director said many new start-ups such ePlane, Agnikul Cosmos and Mindgrove Technologies have been incubated at IIT Madras. “These start-ups will deliver products, which will be of great national importance,” he added.

Top developments of IIT Madras in 2023

IIT Madras Zanzibar Campus Launch - IIT Madras became the first-ever IIT to launch a campus on a foreign country. The institute will initially offer BS and MTech programmes in data science and artificial intelligence. In the first batch at IITM Zanzibar, students from Zanzibar, mainland Tanzania, Nepal, and India have been admitted with 40% of the students being women.

Also read IIT Madras Placements 2023-24: 50% students placed in phase 1

New courses launched

IIT Madras during May 2023 launched a first-of-its-kind department of medical sciences and technology, which will offer a four-year BS programme in medical sciences and engineering. The institute during October 2023 launched a School of Sustainability, which will boost the Institute’s strong tradition of exemplary work in this area.

It also launched a four-year online Bachelor of Science (BS) in Electronic Systems in March 2023. The key objective of the program is to meet the significant and growing demand for skilled graduates in the electronics and embedded manufacturing sector in India. The program also features multiple exits and the students can get a Foundational Level Certificate, Diploma, or the BS degree.

IIT Madras is also going to launch a School of Data Science and Artificial Intelligence that will be established as the prospective 18th department of the institute.

Other accomplishments

IIT Madras organised a G20 Seminar on ‘Role of digital technology in education’ at ‘Sherpa Track – 1st Education Working Group Meeting’ in Chennai, Tamil Nadu, from January 31 to February 2, 2023.

The institute has also signed an agreement with Supreme Court in October 2023 for collaborating on using artificial intelligence (AI) and emerging technologies for transcription tools, summarisation of page transcript, translation tool, an exclusive streaming platform for court trials, process automation and large languages models. The move comes after CJI DY Chandrachud's visit to IIT Madras in July this year.

IIT Madras Pravartak Technologies Foundation has partnered with ‘Vidya Shakti’ to take education to rural areas of Uttar Pradesh through the use of online classes and virtual reality (VR). The Initiative has already been implemented in 100 villages of Varanasi district with the sessions being conducted in Hindi medium for students of Classes 6 to 8.